Stainless steel sheets are excellent in the corrosion resistance under various corrosive environments and are widely used as building materials, materials for automobiles, materials for chemical plants and so on. Recently, there are observed many examples of service environments which are becoming more severe and the stainless steel sheet is demanded to have a more excellent corrosion resistance. On the other hand, stainless steels which take too much labor in their production, even though the corrosion resistance is excellent, are unfavorable to stainless steel manufacturers, so that it is desired that the stainless steel is excellent in the productivity, particularly hot workability.
Under the above circumstances, it has recently become possible to reduce impurities in steel with the advance of steel-making techniques, so as to improve the above corrosion resistance and hot workability by decreasing C, S and O in the stainless steel. For example, JP-B-60-57501 discloses a method of improving anti-corrosion in sea water and hot workability by decreasing C, S and O, and JP-B-2-46662 and JP-B-2-14419 disclose a method of likely improving the hot workability.
According to the above conventional improving techniques, however, there may be created remarkable chapping in a surface of stainless steel sheet after hot rolling-annealing-pickling. Such a chapping falls down during cold rolling to remain as a scab-like defect after the cold rolling, which undesirably deteriorates the corrosion resistance in hot rolled steel sheet and cold rolled steel sheet.
Of course, it has been attempted to trim the chapped surface of the steel sheet by means of a grinder or the like, which brings about the decrease of productivity and the rise of cost and is not an advantageous countermeasure. For this end, it is strongly desired to establish a technique of not creating the above chapping on the surface of the stainless steel sheet after annealing-pickling.